Det. Const. Dave Beardsley of the OPP with a seized illegal Video Lottery Terminal.

Until recently the only thing that wasn’t big business about illegal gambling in Canada was how much attention police and the courts were giving the problem. From poker games to pyramid schemes, gambling rackets are common across Canada. Every year billions of dollars are spent on illegal gambling.

Yet most police departments across the country don't have units dedicated to illegal gambling and inter-agency co-operation has been limited.

The courts also aren't imposing stiff sentences on people convicted of gambling offences. However, that is beginning to change.

The growth of gambling, both legal and illegal, and the growing recognition that illegal gambling is often linked to organized crime has made cracking down on the bad guys a higher priority. Last April, the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada and the Ontario Illegal Gaming Enforcement Unit, a partnership of nine Ontario police forces, got together to start a national intelligence unit. It seeks to allow government agencies to share information and investigation techniques about illegal gambling across Canada.

The federal intelligence service is not an investigating body. It's comprised of officers from municipal, provincial and federal police forces, as well as federal agencies like Corrections Canada and Canada Customs. It has several departments, each of which monitors a different area of criminal activity such as organized crime, motorcycle gangs or pedophilia.

"I think a lot of the gaming officers felt isolated and weren’t sure where they could turn to for assistance..."

Det. Const. Dave Beardsley of the Ontario Provincial Police was assigned to coordinate the federal service's illegal gambling division.

If there is an investigation going on, I can tell them who can help them," he says. His job is to help police forces across the country work together and share information.

Beardsley says some police departments have policies preventing the release of information. Because the different units of the federal intelligence service are staffed by officers from across the country, it is easier for an officer from one police department to get information from another.

I think a lot of the gaming officers felt isolated and weren’t sure where they could turn to for assistance, and one of the short and long term benefits of this project will be they now know who they can turn to for advice."

One of those other officers is Det. Jim Rorison, an 18-year veteran of the Calgary Police Service. Gambling hasn’t been a high priority in Calgary for the last decade or so. In fact, there hasn’t been a conviction on gambling charges in the past eight years, partly because the vice squad there didn’t have an officer dedicated to illegal gambling.

Rorison took up the gambling portfolio two years ago. He is one of more than 50 officers whom Beardsley helped train. In mid-January he completed an investigation that shut down three illegal gambling houses in Edmonton and Calgary.

The federal gambling unit is a great resource, Rorison says. (Beardsley) is a mediator between separate jurisdictions and a focal point for information," Rorison says. "When an investigator is successful and finds a trend, he can relay that to Dave and he can disseminate that.

I might not know of an investigator in Canada who did something similar and Dave can put him in direct contact with me." This way, Rorison adds, another investigator can benefit from his experience. "For what we do, we don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time."

Det. Staff Sgt. Frank Elbers works with the Ontario illegal gaming unit and he sees a lot of positives in the federal project.

"The biggest thing that (the federal unit) does is give us a Canada-wide network of people, which we did not have before, of experienced gaming investigators," he says. "It certainly has opened a few doors in other provinces."

Elbers says projects like this one are necessary to deal with increases in illegal gambling.

quot;Very simply it’s a growing industry," Elbers says. "It’s always been around. Illegal gambling has traditionally been one of organized crime’s main avenues for financing, and just because the government has gotten into legalized gambling, it isn’t going to stop organized crime from doing one of the biggest moneymakers.

For more information visit:

RCMP illegal gambling information
CISC gaming squad

Play responsibly!